10-7-2013
The last few weeks have provided a number of technical revelations, some interesting corporate buys, and one other thing: opportunities for pundits and pilers-on to administer vicious derision and blistering sarcasm. Seems broadcasters are taking up the concept of ?live and local??like it was new. ?Gosh!? bleats the rational, but suspicious sector.
Some are so excited about ?live and local? that comparisons may be made to the Large Hadron Collider and the search for, and confirmation of, the ?god particle.? Meanwhile, small- and medium-market guys snort and proclaim ?L&L? is what they?ve been doing all along. Not so, the big, corporate, smarty-pants operations.
The last 20 years or so have seen the phenomena of broadcasters crippling their own medium ? with significant, noteworthy success. When consolidation still seemed like a workable model, stations were snapped up as if they were shares in gold futures that would never stop growing. And here we are ? 20 years later. Massive debt and a lack of expertise is crushing the life out of an industry ? a business that can only claim about 5 percent of available advertising revenue. This, by the way, is the same medium that claims 90 percent population reach. Even if it could be demonstrated that 100 percent of the citizenry was tuning into radio, the reasonable question would still be: ?So, what??
?Live and local? meanwhile, is pushed forward (again) at a time in radio that, in my view, is rife with desperation. Not the openly embarrassing, running-around-and-screaming kind of desperation, but the low-end, taut-gut rumble that is generated by extreme worry and stress ? symptoms of which include bile-producing fear of whatever else will be leaping from behind the bushes. One of the beasts that will definitely be roaring out of the rhubarb will be the added expense. No. Actually, that will be added expenses ? plural. To no one?s surprise, ?live and local? comes with price tags.
As more owners and management are forced by the evidence to release their precious delusions about what audiences and advertisers will support, they may begin to accept another reasonable reality that, due to their own malfeasance over the years, ?L&L? is one of the only paths left open to those who wish to continue competing for those potential audiences and repeat advertisers. ?McRadio? may have been an acceptable model for a time, but its days are surely numbered.
Meanwhile, there are many small- and medium-market owners who are more than willing to get on their hind legs and trumpet ? with an unquestionable sense of superiority ? that ?live and local? is no news to them. They say they never stopped. They are fibbing. They, too, have cut and/or crippled their on-air and creative staffs as much as any corporate broadcaster. Further, the ?live and local? components they are delivering are so heavily flawed and amateurish as to be just above a line marked (by audiences and advertisers) as ?barely tolerable.? Talent has been suppressed or eliminated. Everywhere.
For those who have accepted the reality that big, freaky changes are on the way, a number of decisions will have to be made. Among the decisions will be those of: How much ?L&L? will it take to make a difference? Who is going to be delivering this content? What are the costs of powering up with actual talent? What are the sources of this soon-to-be-necessary talent pool? How knowledgeable and skilled will this new generation of talent be? Will bringing back already-alienated and twitchy formerly employed talent be a viable strategy? Is this concept of including more ?L&L? going to impact positively on audiences and advertisers? How much more time on-the-air will it take for newly acquired talent to make a difference to an audience?s listening behaviors? Is there even a remote possibility that rational projections can be made as to ROI?
Given the enormity of these oncoming challenges ? and they are coming ? an owner or manager can be forgiven for considering pizza delivery as a viable alternative for making a sub-standard living.
Now, if I were to be asked if I agreed that ?L&L? was a legitimate strategy for commercial radio to embrace, I would respond with a resounding ?Yes! That, too!? Not only is it a legitimate play, it is necessary. But, it is just a component of a more expansive strategy. We can re-cycle back to the concerns listed (above).
?L&L? is not drawn from a tap. It is not a bolt-on accessory from the neighborhood speed and sport store. Nor is it a saddle that can be slapped on anything bigger than a border collie and expected to win The Kentucky Derby. Effective ?live and local? communications emanating from any ? small-, medium-, or major-market ? radio station will have to be delivered by knowledgeable and skilled broadcast communicators. Unlike a bogus Rolex or cheap knock-off of a Gucci bag, counterfeit communications are easily distinguishable by audiences ? audiences who have been presumed (by broadcasters) to be not sophisticated enough to make those kinds of distinctions. Big error! And, given the level of communications pumped out by radio, arrogant as well.
As I demonstrate in my training, ?Advanced Communications For Broadcast Professionals?, people access and understand language far better than they can replicate it. They can make the most tiny of linguistic (communicative) distinctions that broadcasters have even yet to consider as factors. This is pertinent, as well, for those toiling in creative departments. People aren?t rejecting radio because they?re the dummies. It?s about us. It has always been about us.
As ?L&L? (rightly or wrongly) becomes an accepted, necessary, next step for radio, the appalling specter of added expenses is likely to take some stations out. Corporate radio ownership, because of institutional mass, might be unable to respond in time. Even talented performers will still have to be trained. Charles Darwin didn?t insist on the survival or evolution of the biggest or the strongest. He sided with the most adaptive!
Ronald T. Robinson has been involved in Canadian Radio since the '60s as a performer, writer and coach and has trained and certified as a personal counsellor. Ron makes the assertion that the most important communicative aspects of broadcasting, as they relate to Talent and Creative, have yet to be addressed. Check out his website www.voicetalentguy.com
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